


A Chance Childhood Encounter

by BeccaStareyes



Series: Five Stages of Aerich/Tazendra [1]
Category: Dragaera - Steven Brust
Genre: Childhood, First Meetings, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:32:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeccaStareyes/pseuds/BeccaStareyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tazendra remembers her first meeting with Aerich at a game of chance on the road; Aerich remembers something earlier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Chance Childhood Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Five Stage challenge on the theme of childhood.

It had been the custom when Temma's father was Duke to call the barons and counts that looked to him to Arylle for the New Year. As his father became more important in Her Majesty's court, these meetings became irregular, whenever he had time to visit Arylle for the days needed to prepare such. It was understood by Temma that, when he came of age and completed his studies, he would most likely govern Arylle in his father's absence. Thus, he was expected to know something of the liegemen and women under Arylle's wing. 

The first such meeting where Temma was permitted by his tutors to attend was rather memorable, as, sometime during the afternoon, a servant interrupted to inform those gathered, in apologetic terms, that the Baron and Baroness of Daavya's daughter had disappeared from her nurse's company and would her parents know what places she was likely to find of interest? (They had already alerted the men-of-arms, of course, with the hopes that a Dzur child would be naturally drawn to guards when left to her own devices.)

Temma's father was not willing to rule out foul play. Even then, before Arylle's fall, his father had enemies, though the child of a vassal was an unlikely hostage, especially considering her parents' House. He bid Temma to coordinate the search. 

For Temma's part, this did not take much effort: he knew the servants and knew that they knew the residence. But there were places that went forgotten by adults. Temma no longer considered himself a child, though he had not yet reached his majority, but he was not so old to have forgotten childhood. Thus, after ensuring that he could be located by his father's steward, he examined the crawl-spaces, now a tight fit for him. A Dzur, even a child, would not hide there unless ordered, but she might well have gotten curious and gone exploring. 

After nearly an hour of crawling and stooping, he turned a corner and found his target. "Ally or enemy?" she demanded as she attempted to roll back onto her feet from the crawling position she'd been moving in. Temma only dimly recalled what the child looked like, and the light he had brought was weak, but he could see her House from her face. And only a Dzur or a Dragon would think it was appropriate to challenge a stranger. 

Temma sighed. "As I am the son of the duke whose residence you are currently in, and, moreover, the son of of the duke who holds your parents' oaths, I am most certainly an ally."

She considered that, and nodded. "Well, you are a Lyorn like His Grace is. Have you found my nurse?" she asked. "Um, my lord?"

"How, your nurse?"

"We were out walking, when she went missing. So I went to locate and rescue her." 

He raised an eyebrow. True, to a child, that might seem perfectly reasonable: that there was no difference between those adults set to minding children and the children themselves. It made Temma quite grateful that he had no younger siblings. "She is well, and safe, and worried about you."

"Well, I do not wish to worry her."

"Then, if you will follow me, we will alleve her worries."

Temma remembered being irritated by the incident, though his father later remarked that the child was clearly taking after her parents in drive, and made mention of some history that Temma should familiarize himself with.

Thus, he was not terribly surprised when it was the Baron and Baroness of Daavya who his father had asked to guard him when politics took a turn for the worse. Nor, at the lengths they were willing to go to.

* * *

Centuries later, he asked Tazendra if she remembered the incident. 

"Bah, can one be expected to remember all the mischief of one's childhood?" she replied. 

He shrugged. "It was merely a curious thought."

**Author's Note:**

> The Dragaeran timeline estimates Aerich is approximately 50 years older than Tazendra. This fic is set some years before both of them lost their parents; so Tazendra is in her 20s and Aerich is in his 70s. (I'm making educated guesses at roughly how mature that is, since Dragaeran ages don't linearly correspond to 'Easterner' ages.) Also, canon suggests Tazendra may not be Tazendra's name at birth, but it's not like canon gives us what it would be. So she goes unnamed here, save for the end.


End file.
